


Not So Softly Spoken

by asongstress1422



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Hurt, Stubborn, Survival, The Drop Ship, protective Bellamy Blake, wounded Clarke Griffin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 12:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8328055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asongstress1422/pseuds/asongstress1422
Summary: Bellamy and Clarke are doing what they do best; surviving. After a run-in-gone-wrong that leaves Clarke injured, they must make it back to the safety of camp before it's too late.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the first round of @bellarkefanficfest using the prompts: together, princess, tree, sleep, morning, pain, camp, surviving.

 “Here we are, princess,” he panted laying her down at the base of a tree. With a groan he sat next to her bracing his back against the bark with a sigh. “Home sweet home. For tonight at least.”

He rested his head between his knees, breathing hard. His arms felt like water. His legs, gone numb miles before, trembled. He had no idea how they had made it this far. He refused to think how they would continue, they simply would. They had to.

Clarke made some kind of moaning grunt, shifting restlessly. Bellamy quickly bent over, holding her shoulder to keep her still.

“Hey, hey, hey, it's all good. We’ve just stopped for the night.” He brushed dirty hands against her just as dirty forehead and frowned, “you're still a bit warm there, princess.”

She blinked open her eyes, face pinched. It took a second for her to focus on him but when she did he knew things were bad.

“Leave.” It was less the forceful command he had come to expect and more a breathless escape of air.

“We will. In the morning," he promised stroking fingers over snarled hair, "first light.”

“No,” she glared at him through eyes fever bright. “You.”

His hand stilled in her hair. “I’m not leaving you Clarke."

“Dying.” A chill slipped down his spine. Fearful acceptance punctuated the word. He knew she was bad, but this was Clarke. With the right tools she could fix anything. She couldn’t die. They needed her.

“You’re not dying. Not out here and not from a little poke in the side. We’re going to get back to base, get you set up in your self-made medward, and you’re going to fix yourself right up. In a few days your gonna be right back to bossing me around.”

Tears filled her eyes. With a shake of her head she closed them and turned away.

“That’s right, just sleep. That's what you need.” He collapsed next to her snuggling in close. “You’re not dying,” he snapped crushing her closer. “You can’t. We need you. Don’t be selfish. Who's gonna stitch Octavia up if you’re not there? Or see that things get done inside the compound with minimal injury? Or talk down Goggles and Monty when they eat weird shit and think they’re trees? You can’t leave those people in my hands, I’m a prick.”

* * *

 

The next morning, just as the trees were turning into individual shadows instead of one big shadow, he forced them to get up. Again she tried to get him to leave her. Again he ignored her. Instead he checked her wound.

The cloth was completely bloody. How ever as it was dry and she was still breathing he took that as an okay sign. Fearing to cause it to start bleeding again he opted to leave it be until they reached help. And if they were to reach help in time they had to get moving. He sat her up as gently as he could, wincing when she cried out, propping her against the trunk.

“Okay, time to go.” He crouched before her, presenting his back.

“Bellamy.” The way she said his name, like it would be the last time, nearly broke his heart. She was giving up.

“Fucking damn it, Clarke. I swear on whatever cursed power still reins on this earth that if you don’t stop sniveling and find that backbone that your so renowned for having I’m going to tell everyone you cried the first time you saw a flower.”

She gasped. Then hissed, “You promised.”

“Ya, well who's gonna stop me? So get on, shut up, and you can kick my ass when you can stand.” She growled something unflattering under her breath but wound her shaky arms wrap around his neck. She was nowhere near being fine but at least she now sounded like she had stopped giving up. “Okay, up we go.”

There was no place to be gentle in this so he opted for being fast and getting it over with. He stood quickly, hooking arms around her legs and hoisted her into a carrying position settling her weight evenly on his back. She gasped in pain, pressing her face hard into the base of his neck, breathing shallow as her arms tightened around his throat.

“Wouldn’t be trying to strangle me there would you, princess?”

She huffed a half laugh, teasingly tightening her hold a bit more, before easing against him exhausted. “Maybe later,” she croaked.

“I’ll hold you too it.” He set off into the gray mist, praying things would work out.

* * *

 “Asshole.”

He turned swiftly to see Clarke laying on her side, eyes open and staring at him. She was awake. And spouting insults apparently.

“What was that, princess?"

“You’re an asshole,” she smiled, eyes fluttering as she tried to keep them open. “Not a prick. A prick can be fun. Only shit comes from an asshole. Couldn’ die ‘cause you’re a’ ass-whole.” Her words started to slur more towards the end of her little speech and she smacked her dry lips together tiredly. “Water?”

“Yeah, right here.” He turned and filled one of the small twisted metal pieces they had has sanded down and fashioned into cups. He helped ease her head up to sip at the water. She gave up after a few sips, worn out.

“How long?” she sighed.

“Stumbled in yesterday, mid-morning. Dawn is just a couple hours off.” He gave her a reproachful look, “you were in a bad way, Clarke.”

“Told ya,” she mumbled twitching her shoulder in a broad approximation of a shrug as her eyes closed. Her breathing started to deepen. Then she sucked in a startled breath and her eyes popped open searching around. They locked on him and frowned. “Tired?”

“It’s something Goggles and Monty have been cooking up. It helps with infections but they said a side effect might be drowsiness.” He stood up, “I’ll leave. You need the sleep anyways.”

“No.” Panicked she grabbed his wrist in a weak hold. “No leave. Can’t leave. Get up.” Tears glittered in her eyes as she couldn’t communicate what she wanted to as the drug began taking effect again even as she fought it. “People, Bellamy! Up. _Together_.”

“It’s okay, everything’s fine.” He soothed holding her shoulder down as she thrashed lightly. He was going to tell the wonder twins to lessen the dose if its effects caused this much panic in the patient. “The people are fine, Clarke, everyone’s fine. Now calm down. You’re not getting up, you're going to sleep.”

“No,” she whined trying to wiggle out of his hold.

“Yes,” he stressed crouching down at the edge of the cot to be at eye level with her, holding her hand with his left and brushing hair out of her eyes with the other. “You’re going to sleep and continue healing and I’m going to sit right here next to you, okay?”

“Stay?” she clarified, sounding pitiful.

He nodded. “Stay.”

He remained crouched there until her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing evened out. Pulling up the chair he had been sitting in for the last sixteen hours he continued his vigil. They had come so close to losing her. The wound had been bad, infection deeply set. Threat of shock from treatment. An overdose of an experimental drug. Or an underdose that did nothing to stabilize her system. Even now that she had woken up she still wasn’t out of the woods. The threat of secondary infection was still very real.

Her hand flexed in his, pulling him back to himself. She was here, mending. There were still more hurdles to overcome but they had managed worse. And the camp had banded together and save the person who was always saving them. In a dark way her being injured was the best possible thing for moral, it had brought them all closer.

It would have destroyed them if they had failed and she had died.

“You’re not done yet, Clarke. You still need to fight. We need you.”

* * *

Two days later she was up and walking.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Bellamy bellowed as he marched over to her.

“Photosynthesis. Nuclear fission. Self contained flight,” she snapped leaning heavily on a water trough rail. “What the hell does it look like?”

“Get back to bed,” he ordered pointing back to the dropship.

“No.” She made for another step and almost ate it when her knee gave. He was close enough to steady her.

“Are you alright?” he asked hushed against her hair.

“Walk me around camp,” she panted in reply against his jaw.

“Clarke-”

“Just do it.”

“You were supposed to wait until after you healed to start bossing me around, princess,” he snipped, hoping to ease her back into the drop ship.

She ignored him, still completely serious. “I’ve been cooped up too long. People are growing concerned. I need to show them I’m fine.”

“Are you fine?” he demanded quietly, angry that she would push herself like this.

She flashed him a wane smile. “Just keep the walk short.”

They made a quarter circlet around camp. Bellamy showing off some of the progress that had been accomplished since the last time she’d been out. People swung by for a bit to have a word with Clarke, mainly about her health. She mostly kept it upbeat, saying she was healing nicely and only a little sore. Ten minutes and he felt her energy flag. Her hand was a white knuckled claw on his arm and she was leaning heavier and heavier on him. When it appeared she would not turn back herself he growled something about having to see to something in the dropship and carted her after him.

She promptly collapsed the second they were behind the tarp and hidden from view. He caught her, swinging her up into his arms and marching her to her bed. She was white faced and gasping.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” he growled setting her down.

“Had to," she panted, "they needed to stop worrying about me.”

“Well someone needs to as you clearly don’t.” He dunked his hands in the bucket of wash water and scrubbed with the soap the boys had magically concocted by boiling pine needles and some kind of green berry. “Lift up your shirt,” he ordered shaking out a clean linen piece to dry his hands.

“I’m fine.”

He turned on her slowly, bending down and locking his hands on either side of the mattress, crowding her on the bed. “You are _not_ fine. You spent _two_ _days_ nearly dying. _Three days_ barely not dying. And only twenty hours lucid enough you could feed yourself. Now, lift your shirt so I can see how far you’ve reverted the process before I become pissed off.”

“And what do you call your present mood.”

He leaned in closer letting his temper speak for him. “Mildly annoyed.”

She swallowed looking away. Conceding defeat she gingerly shimmied up her top so that the bandage was accessible.

He carefully unwrapped the area. Bruised and discolored the central puncture site was scabbing nicely. It would scar but considering how putrid the wound had become she was lucky. He laid his clean hand over the area cupping it gently, checking for any heat. The pressure he applied was nearly nonexistent and still she hissed at the weight.

“You didn’t reopen it in any case.”

“I know. I was going to be a doctor, if you recall, and have been finding creative ways to make sure you lot don’t die from a splinter for the last three months.”

He fought a smile. The ancients saying that a doctor made the worst patient was personified in Clarke. “Its not unduly hot either. How does it feel?”

“Sore," she gritted. "So if you would get your boulder size fist off it that would be great.”

He shook his head in exasperation, “just let me put some ointment and bandage it and I’ll leave you in peace.”

“Use the red seaweed paste, none of that stuff Monty made.”

“You told me that it was good stuff.”

“It is but we don’t have a lot of it and the ingredients are hard to find. Until we can find a way to make more we need to use it sparingly. The red seaweed may be less potent but it gets the job done and we know how to get our hands on it fairly readily.”

He rolled his eyes but went to get the red paste knowing that if he went for the other stuff she would fight him from putting it on. It took a bit of hunting to find the correct little jar. The once orderly space of hers had turn chaotic in her brief absence. He’d see who he could spare to come clean up and re-order some of these things. On the ground, one never knew when medicine would be needed quickly.

Besides, if it didn’t get done soon Clarke would try and fix it herself.

“The group has better things to do then be concerned about me.”

“You’re a vital part of this camp, Clarke.” He said unearthing the little jar she used for the paste and catching a stack of plants before they fell off the table. “Of course they are going to be concerned about you.”

She snorted. “The camp would be fine without me. There are enough people to scrape together enough knowledge to help each other. I may be helpful, but they don’t need me.”

He set the bandages on her flat stomach. Digging his fingers in the jar he flopped a healthy dose of the seaweed paste over the bruised area. “If you think this camp wouldn’t fall apart without you, you’re not as bright as I thought you were. Yeah, we could clobber together enough not to kill ourselves outright, but it’s you who heals us. They may follow me; but they look to you. Without you to hold us together we’d fracture and our only safety right now comes from numbers. You can’t leave us.” He scrubbed his bicep across his face. “So, yeah, stop trying to over do it so you can get back on your feet faster.”

She closed her own watery eyes, using her arm to block the light. “Yeah, sure. I’ll cut down my walks to only once a day.” Her voice was tight but she pushed it to be normal.

“Let's try for sitting up for more than twenty minutes first before we upgrade to actually walking.” He got up to return the stuff to the table. Her hand shot out and gripped his, stopping him.

“Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing his hand.

He squeezed back. “Get some sleep.”

She nodded and let him go.

* * *

The next day when he came to check on her she was organizing the mess she called a work station.

“I’m sitting down,” she defended.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you thought. All commits are greatly appreciated.


End file.
